In 2011, President Obama and Australia's Prime Minister Julia Gillard were visiting Virginia high schoolers when a student asked an innocent enough question: What is Vegemite? In her attempts to explain the Australian delicacy, Prime Minister Gillard said this was one thing that her and the US President did not agree on. PM Gillard explained that she loved the black paste she said was a “byproduct of making beer,” but President Obama did not. “It’s horrible,” said President Obama to a classroom full of teens,“it’s like a quasi-vegetable byproduct paste that you smear on your toast for breakfast. Sounds good, doesn’t it?”

Many of you are undoubtedly saying “no, it does not.” Well, to help you better understand it, here’s the story behind Vegemite, a beloved Australian delicacy that most Americans just don’t understand.

After working as a top secret explosives maker during the war, Cyril Callister became Australia's top food technologist. In 1923, renowned for his line of wartime and outback ration products including canned butter, potted cheese, liver paste and a delectable beef extract called Bonox, he was hired by Fred Walker & Co. Knowing the commercial possibilities of an Australian version of Marmite, Walker put Callister to work. The result was a saltier version of Marmite, with the name Vegemite being chosen by Walker’s daughter from a pool of names submitted in a national competition. The irony, of course, is that Vegemite doesn’t actually contain any vegetables at all. Celery salt is as close as it comes.

Vegemite was on Australian shelves by 1924, but it took two decades for it to earn its spot alongside koalas and the boomerang as a national icon. In the 1940s, sly advertising highlighting its healthy virtues and its portability made it attractive to the Australia’s armed forces. Studies revealed that, much like Marmite, it was high in Vitamin Bs. Due to this, the Australian military added Vegemite to ration packs during World War II. Soon, the black paste became a source of national pride with posters across the country reading, "Vegemite: Keeping fighting men fighting fit." Many Australians credited Vegemite for helping the Allies win the war, with one particular odd urban myth saying that soldiers would leave pierced tins of Vegemite out in the open, allowing in botulism. Then, they would leave the tins for unsuspecting starving Japanese soldiers, who would consume it and contract the disease.